This college course starts with 15 minutes of doing absolutely nothing

A college course that starts with 15 minutes of doing absolutely nothing would seem like stiff competition for Basket Weaving 101 as a credit filler.

And yet for harried students in the throes of the tech age, that silent intro has proven to be the toughest part of professor David Levy’s “Information and Contemplation,” a University of Washington class whose popularity and reputation is growing.

“They start the course rushed and with tight shoulders, but my argument is that it’s precisely for the sake of productivity that we need a greater connection with ourselves and our tech tools,” says Levy, a former Silicon Valley denizen who teaches out of the Information School’s Mary Gates Hall, honoring the mother of tech, godfather Bill.

David Levy teaches “Information and Contemplation” at the University of Washington, a course that asks students to meditate and mono-task as a way of getting a grip on their tech tools. (Photo: Marco della Cava, USA TODAY)

“This isn’t about saying technology is bad,” says Levy, who grants himself a “tech Sabbath” every Saturday. “It’s about a having a deeper conversation and being mindful of limits, about asking yourself, ‘How do I want to live?’ ”

Each winter, Levy’s course invites students to open class with 15 minutes of silent meditation, followed by a range of assignments that include responding to e-mail — and only e-mail, dubbed mono-tasking — for 20 minutes straight as well as filming your screen and yourself while surfing the Web, via software called Camtasia, to check posture and body language.

Junior journalism major Lily Katz, 21, didn’t like what she saw.

“I was switching tasks mindlessly, from e-mail to Facebook and back,” Katz says. “I thought, ‘Whoa, I’m wasting a lot of time.’ Now I’m more self-aware.”